


language and other lessons

by blueincandescence



Series: all's fair in love and cold war [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 1. the Istanbul affair, 2. spy dates in London, 3. an homage to that feeling you got when TMFU shifted a tone too far, 4. read-alouds, 5. Gaby wants fluff but Illya brought angst, F/M, Prompt Fill, Vignettes, any character in this film could make the phonebook sexy, questionable Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-20 13:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8251066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: Gaby wants to learn Russian. How could Illya refuse?Five vignettes of 500 words.





	1. useful learning

**Author's Note:**

> My long-winded writing habits are getting out of hand, so I'm challenging myself to write fewer words for more impact. Each vignette has five sections, 100 words apiece.
> 
> All you gallya writers out there who haven't signed up, the [TMFU holiday exchange hosted on ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/TMFUGiftExchange2016) is still open until this Friday the 14th!

* * *

**Turkey, 1963**

* * *

 17 SEPTEMBER

On a rooftop, Illya adjusts dials for sound and aims binoculars at the hat concealing Gaby’s çay, her French novel, her boredom he will pay for. Crackling Russian plots turn to scraping chairs. Bumped, Gaby accepts the mimed apology of the arms dealer her proximity has damned.

Ring finger tapping her chin, she huffs. “I hope they weren’t discussing football. I’m as useful as this table.”

Illya, unseen, admires skirt, legs, feet. A well-decorated table. Finest craftsmanship.

“Teach me Russian.”

Approval radiates. Professional interest; is better for the mission, UNCLE’s uncertain future. Illya ignores second thoughts. Damned by proximity already.

19 SEPTEMBER

Istanbul has been a drawn-out affair without occasion for an oil executive’s wife to visit the grim apartment of Soviet gunrunners. Knocking halts Illya’s pacing. He ushers Gaby in, pays her German-speaking cover.

Gaby’s fingertips skim the dictionaries, books, slates he acquired for her learning not amusement. Illya squares off against his pupil, seated at the makeshift desk by the window.

They begin with what she knows.

Pencil denting her bottom lip, Gaby thinks. Raises a slender hand; waits out exasperation. “ _Teacher_.” She rasps each syllable.

_“Again.”_

Huskier still.

Sunlight glints in her eyes, heats the back of his neck.

29 SEPTEMBER

Lessons are half-day sessions, per customs of hospitality. His guest brings Turkish Delight, leaves fine powder on everything she touches.

“ _Translation_.”

Illya cannot say much for East Berlin schooling, but Gaby is quick to re-learn basics, mimics well, retains what strikes her.  

“ _Recitation_.”

His languages were acquired by drill, route. Fear of humiliation.

Gaby tests his rigor with whimsy. She leans across him, folded in her chair, to point out her most fanciful sentences. He conjugates to save himself.

Pouting, she smoothes his hair. “Aren’t Russians poets?”

They part like springs.

Solo smirks at Illya’s hairline, marked by something sweet.

6 OCTOBER

They kissed beside the Bosphorus; the mission turned. These events only feel related.

Days on end, Illya, Gaby, and Solo have hunkered, inoperative. Language lessons are proxy war battlegrounds.

“Teach me something useful,” Gaby spits. Thinks Illya holds her back.

She is untrained, a liability. “Twelve years of schooling, you learn nothing!”

He is right. Toe to toe, hard as flint. She learned from older girls — “ _Have pity. Think of your sister. Don’t hurt me; I won’t scream_.”

Solo makes the call Illya cannot: “There are Russian girls crawling all over that warehouse.”

Chalk crumbles, dust in Illya’s fist.

11 OCTOBER

Fresh unpleasantness on hold until morning, the agents of UNCLE stroll the Grand Bazaar separately, together still; improbable is their new status quo.

Injuries concealed, Illya’s welcome lira buys: a backgammon set too well-made to flip off a balcony, glittering protections from the Evil Eye, the curly-whorliest shoes in ‘Ishtanbul.’ Trifles stacked beside life debts.

At a bookseller, acquaintances meet over Cyrillic texts. Illya scrutinizes Gaby’s vowels; “ _You will practice_.” Rolling eyes, hoisted grammar guides. Illya slips in fairy tales, earns her smile. She thumbs poetry, bruising him. “ _Challenging. Time is needed_.”

Pushkin presses against his chest. “ _You will practice_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt [anonymous]:** I'm just obseeesssssed with the idea of Illya teaching Gaby Russian pre relationship and just feeling nervous and antsy about spending time alone with her and just relishing the down time they get to share. Bonus points if Illya is turned to soup by her gorgeous husky voice!!


	2. cultural exchange

* * *

**England, 1963**

* * *

9 NOVEMBER

“English are suspicious of foreigners,” Illya tells a Hyde Park duck pond. “Mistakes justify their superiority.”

The bundle of scarves on the bench behind scoffs. “Justify your own you mean. ‘Articles aren’t Russian way.’”

“If only your consonant clusters were as accurate as your impressions.”

Gaby hums a tune: anything he can say she can say better. They saw _Annie Get Your Gun_ Tuesday, rows apart.

“ _Sentence:_ Dastaprimechatel'nast.”

“ _I saw every attraction_ — ” unintelligible “ — _in London_.” She sighs. “ _Alone_.”

Illya gropes for solace; he often lives where he is alone, foreign, suspected. Has never had to make it permanent.

30 NOVEMBER

Illya stares at the card, jostled as Gaby copies lines. A newly-minted citizen would belong to her local library. A travel agent might have a Russian tutor. Gabriela Schmidt builds her life like an air-tight cover.

Another bite of Kinder Surprise, movement to check her watch. Caught out again, Gaby packs early. Coffee plans, dance lessons.

He helps with her coat toggles.

Russian buzzes his neck, asking after his plans. “ _Classified_.”

She was craving German chocolate; what might someone bring him from home? His ministrations turn brusque. “Borscht.”

Something’s missing in her laughter. In him, according to her softened eyes.

1 DECEMBER

Through Illya’s peephole: a grocery sack, an agent who knows better.

Gaby hangs her coat on Illya’s, lines her wellies beside. “Downgrading from paranoid to cautious won’t kill you.” Flushed cheeks, tousled hair in his kitchen might.

Beets, carrots, cabbage. “Don’t gawk. Fetch a recipe.”

He reaches for a cookbook, hesitates. Returns with fading instructions in his grandmother’s hand. Gaby is careful not to crinkle, not to spill. The cosmopolitan has endless questions about his childhood visits to the village. Illya praises imperfect grammar, belly warm and full.

“Moy instruktor? Effectively bribed?” Admonishment is undercut by socked toes finding his.

22 DECEMBER

Gaby’s snow-brushed cheek flinches at Illya’s German greeting. Her suggestion; if she runs into anyone at the Christmas market, she’ll say he’s visiting London. They walk, hands deep in pockets.

Holding back consumeristic critiques, Illya compliments intricate angel figurines. She snorts. “ _Don’t you mean_ Jahresendzeitfigur?” No angels in East Berlin. Father Christmas never delivered toys to children of the partition. The Vopos cracked down hardest on Weihnachtsmärkte, didn’t he find that odd?

Illya finds common ground lamenting mulled wine and spins tales of its Russian origins. She smacks his arm, takes hold. Her free hand he loads down with presents.

25 DECEMBER

Illya waffles in the lobby until Waverly, in a jaunty paper crown, raps on glass with his telephone.

Solo, aproned, carves a roast while Gaby wobbles a fruitcake. Illya and his meager offerings receive an overly warm welcome, confirming suspicion of a bet. Clamping Illya’s shoulder, Solo calls out: “My cooking could make anyone tear up the Communist Manifesto.”

Gaby says she waited for Illya do the honors. He takes her by the waist instead, lifting her to top the tree with a red star.

It’s a hodgepodge celebration; blended cuisines, music, decorations. Everything out of place so nothing is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt [anonymous]:** So I know you have a thousand or so prompt requests, but here's mine too. Never too many ideas :) Would you write a piece where Illya has been homesick but he won't admit it because he has mixed feelings about home but really all he wants is some borscht. So Gaby picks up on this and thinks what the hell I'll indulge him, and that kind of starts them on a path to learning about each other's cultures and doing little things for each other. Not in an official relationship yet but heading that way.
> 
>  _Notes on duck pond scene:_  
>  (1) Mr. meticulous wouldn’t drop articles unless he was proving a point, right? He speaks more fluently talking to blueblood Uncle Rudi, for example.  
> (2) Sadly, I’m guessing the three of them painting London red together all the time would probably be bad for the spy business. Even if no one would notice, overly cautious Illya is a real thing.  
> (3) Imagine the spy dates, though. Cute _and_ angsty.
> 
>  _Notes on the Christmas Market scene (lotta research for 100 words):_  
>  (1) It’s influenced by flotationdevice’s most recent chapter of Mr. & Mrs. Schmidt, which everyone should be reading.  
> (2) Vopo is short for Volkspolizei, the national police force of East Germany (something like community police forces to the Stasi’s FBI).  
> (2) Weihnachtszeit, as far as I can tell, is the Berliner-preferred term for Christmas market.  
> (3) Jahresendzeitfigur means “year-end figure,” which is what the Soviets unsuccessfully tried to get East Germans to call angels.  
> (4) The way I justify Illya and Gaby speaking in English to each other all the time (discounting, you know, that TMFU is an American movie) is by headcanoning that Gaby put the kibosh on Illya’s offer to speak German to her _immediately._ A Russian speaking German — even if we want to imagine Illya’s accent is impeccable — can have no good connotations for the poor girl. She’s softening her stance here, but English will always be their most comfortable, (relatively) politically neutral language.
> 
>  _Notes on the Christmas scene:_  
>  (1) Waverly, the softie, bet against Illya coming to make sure Solo was properly incentivized to ensure he did come.  
> (2) So, yes that’s two chapters I’ve ended on notes of found family UNCLE. Bury me with that trope, please and thank you!  
> (3) Unrepentant Christmas fluff in October??? Apologies upon request.


	3. war wounds

* * *

  **Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, 1964**

* * *

25 FEBRUARY

Translator of atrocities the only available role, Gaby numbers grayscale photographs and notates marginal text in two ledgers. Names, dates, instructions, chemicals — German to clinical English, halting Russian. Vital intel for the mission. Necessary.

Lining Gaby’s workstation are bottles she has filled herself with to no avail. Her eyes are emptier each time Illya comes to check on her. Blunt fingernail tracing her lettering, he nods. She is learning new words and phrases. _Radiation. Time of death._ Her knuckles are white, the dictionary red. He tells her sleep.

She won’t. What is vital? Necessary? How to translate senseless acts?

27 FEBRUARY

Ringing subsumed by a cacophony of helicopter blades, choked heaves, and riffling pages, Illya comes to on a stretcher. His hand is trapped by Gaby’s hip. He grasps her there. Feels relief reverberate through her muscles. Solo is coughing blood.

Gaby rifles faster. “ _Photograph sixty-three_!” she yells, her Russian surer than he has heard it. _“The oval rings on his neck!”_ Her fingers strike the page. “ _Same formula! Goddamn you all, listen!_ ” She repeats the translated chemical list for photograph sixty-three until the Soviet medical unit heeds her, until Solo stabilizes, until she is hoarse and sagging in Illya’s grip.

28 FEBRUARY

The military hospital is bleaker than most; the stained pillows Illya props Solo against have more color than his face. Gaby palms two cards too many from the deck. Her forced jauntiness is lost on Solo.

Glazed, he rallies focus for the photo album. “Your uncle had one of those. I was to have my own page. Color.”

Illya waits for the evasion, ready to assist.

But Gaby lays her cards on Solo’s chest.

He stares down the past. “‘Arbeit macht frei’ — we joked about that. Wien, die frau. Everything made us free. We were liberators.” A wheeze, derisive.

 

At the safehouse, Illya packs Solo’s things. Waverly arrived at the hospital thirty-six hours late. Red tape. For Gaby, Illya cleans. Bottles have multiplied.

She has one with her on the couch, balanced between her breasts. He sees on his approach that her thin pajamas are soaked with vodka sweats.

“You joked in German, surely.” She has turned philosopher. “‘Blitzkrieg’ this, ‘blockade’ that.” Her heel pushes hard into his stomach, leg bent unnaturally. Shared suffering. “We joked in Russian. ‘ _You’ll pay for that,_ nemchatina.’ Funny, we never said what we were paying for.”

Illya backs away. Her hollow bones fall.

 

Gaby and her pajamas go into the tub, bubbles erupting from her cursing lips. Illya kneels in the pool beside to wait for her to surface, sputtering.

“ _Recitation_ : Ya ne moi predki.”

She butchers it, defiant. Slowing syllables, he matches her glare. He infuses reverence into his words. She spits them back, gnashes them. Mumbles them against his dampened sleeve. Calms.

“ _Translation_.”

I’m not my blood, she will say. Or kin, heritage. She sees through him with eyes filled to the brim. “You are not your father.” His elbow becomes a cradle for her head. “ _I am not my uncle_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nemchatina translates to “German meat,” according to Wikipedia.


	4. fine print

* * *

  **Yugoslavia, 1964**

* * *

5 MARCH

Gaby is shaking — cold, fear, rage — when Illya finds her at the Skopje station. He bundles her in his winter garb, hers with Solo at the club from which she did fine work getting abducted. The experimental drug she procured is zipped into Illya’s coat. Two of her marks are laid out blocks back.

The third has staggered in, hunting for a lone German woman. Illya curls around Gaby, their heads bowed toward the pages he reads aloud in Russian. She relaxes into his voice, stilling even as a psychopath hellbent on revenge passes close enough to strike.

6 MARCH

Illya rescues the book of fairytales before Gaby can further abuse the archaic prose. Gaby’s demand that Solo enable her delusion of perfect pronunciation forces their partner to quit the cramped compartment altogether.

The moment the door catches, Illya flips the lock and Gaby climbs onto his lap. The shade is still drawn from the last time they smoked Solo out — bickering like an old married couple for the chance to attack each other like newlyweds.

Gaby blames their lack of control on the purr of the engine; Illya knows it’s her sex kitten rasp, provocative even when incomprehensible.

 

One look at their flushed smirks as they exit the train and Solo books them a honeymoon suite in nearby Lake Bled. They’re meant to be lying low in the city, but Illya can’t protest so slight an adjustment to the mission with Gaby sunlit and beaming.

They play tourists for the afternoon. Solo meets them for dinner, a package tucked under his arm. “More inspiring reading material,” he says with a wink. Gaby unwraps it in the car — “Ivan Barkov” — and casts an eyebrow for context. Illya’s rising color tells her everything she is delighted to know.

 

Illya traces the line of Gaby’s hip as it stretches with her reach. She flips through the bawdy poems. She is collecting obscenities to use against him. He’s powerless to deny her their thrill.

Gaby tells him about coming of age in a theatre, the banned books they accessed from Wessi dancers — _Lady Chatterley's Lover, Madame Bovary, Venus in Furs_. Illya has seen such books incinerated, but he has no ire for them. “At least you are well-read.”

“Great literature teaches you about yourself.” Brow arched, she slips a hand down her belly to show him all she learned.

7 MARCH

Illya carries Gaby up the ninety-nine steps to the Church on the Island; their cover demands it, laughter makes it light work. He holds her hand as they ring the bell together. Their wishes they keep safe, unsaid.

Looking out over the lake, they picnic on fine wine and cheeses. Gaby’s head in his lap, he reads Pushkin aloud. He doesn’t offer translation; she doesn’t ask. Her understanding is mapped onto his skin. Pressure builds when he reads “ _The Dream_.”

They have run out of wine, cheese, borrowed time. They will wake tomorrow in London: gray skies and watchful eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt [anonymous]: Illya reading Gaby a book? Bonus points if cuddling.
> 
> The Dream  
> Not long ago, in a charming dream,  
> I saw myself — a king with crown's treasure;  
> I was in love with you, it seemed,  
> And heart was beating with a pleasure.  
> I sang my passion's song by your enchanting knees.  
> Why, dreams, you didn't prolong my happiness forever?  
> But gods deprived me not of whole their favor:  
> I only lost the kingdom of my dreams.
> 
> UGH, Illya and Pushkin is everything to me. Ptichka is my preferred Russian term of endearment for Illya to use for Gaby because of the poem “A Little Bird,” which is so perfect for them it makes me UGH.
> 
> Banned book section inspired by Verboten by MilkshakeKate. Read it!


	5. left said

* * *

**West Germany, 1964**

* * *

19 MAY

Illya is called to Moscow the day he is invited to West Berlin to pop champagne in Gaby’s newest living room. She bundles the bottle under her jacket and leads him by the hand on a late night jaunt to the Wall. “The scene of the crime!”

He hooks his elbows under hers, simulates dangling over a minefield. Earns no sympathy.

Freed, Gaby squeezes his middle in retaliation. “Two nights, no sleep for phantom shouts — ‘ _Defector!’_ I was certain you’d hunt me down.”

Illya’s arms hang at his sides. He was her nightmare. How could she let him forget?

 

Gaby perches on the hood of a Lloyd 660 — “The shame of West Germany.” She pats beside her with a sweet promise to pop out his dent. Asks him to uncork the champagne.

Illya sets it aside. Says he has been called in, answers what he can. Three months, no more than six. Mission then evaluations. Classified.

“Whatever the mission, it will be dangerous without us.” Her hand twists his collar. “We’ve made you soft.”

They walk back arm in arm, space for another body between them. Gaby pitches the champagne in a bin. “Flat.” She hadn’t tried it.

 

Gaby’s chic apartment boasts four pieces of furniture: kitchen table, chairs small enough to drag to the balcony and a bed big enough to lose her in.

With every scrap of Russian profanity she has wrest from him, Gaby punishes:

Doe eyes downcast. “ _Naughty_.”

“ _Harder. More_!” Urging his hips to buck up.

“ _Fuck_.” Nails in his backside, teeth on his chest. “Trahni menya!”

“ _Love,_ moya lyubov,” Illya moans against her ear. But Gaby does not love him in Russian. Only teases, orders, snaps. He suffers. Grateful, spent.

Illya wakes in darkness to Gaby’s python grip, body twitching with bad dreams.

20 MAY

Sleep-gentled, Gaby lets him make love to her at sunrise.

Illya dresses her in a Pucci dress, swirls of blues, purples, pinks.

They breakfast on her balcony. Spring will be long over before they see each other again. Illya cannot share this regret; Gaby relinquishes his mouth only when she must. A sip of water, bite of toast. Her bitter coffee buzzes his tongue.

She kisses him out the door, slender hand in his pocket. Ostmark coins cross the Wall with him. As does the sun, just as bright. Were Gaby with him, Illya could never make her see this.

 

Gaby knows it’s him on the line. The whistles, engine clank.

She recites, “Dasvidaniya. _Bye-bye. See you soon. Too bad you must go. Take care. Farewell. Send my best to Moscow_.” All the inflection of a recording.

“ _You will practice_.” Illya will picture her mouth curved by Russian vowels.

“ _I can say everything I want to: Good riddance. Forget to write_.” She weaponizes his language. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”

The shot lands throat-first. “ _Again_.”

“I said it perfectly.” Proves it: “ _I love you._ ”

“ _I know._ ” He knows the shape of her lips, the set of her chin. “You said it perfectly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt [bowtiesarecool63]:** hello! I love all your fics, they're so great. I was wondering if you guys could write one where gaby and illya get in a fight of sorts before illya has to do a dangerous mission and right before he leaves gaby says "I love you" and illya response is "I know" (dramatic exit). It doesn't have to be exactly like this I just want the "I love you" and "I know" in there. some sadness, some happiness. sorry if it's a lot.


End file.
